Listen, the New York Republican Party isn’t exactly a well-oiled machine. Its penchant for supporting bland, unelectable candidates is well known. But the good news for New York conservatives is that the voters don’t pay much attention to the party hacks anymore.
As Jonathan pointed out yesterday, the gubernatorial race is competitive, since the state party’s favorite candidate Rick Lazio was rejected by primary voters. But look at the Senate race. With a virtual unknown Republican opponent, Joe DioGuardi, Kirsten Gillibrand is now in a fight for her political life. Quinnipiac reports that Gillibrand is below 50 percent (the sign of trouble for an incumbent) and leads by only a 48-to-42 percent margin. She trails among independents by a 41-to-42 margin. The Survey USA poll has the race even closer with Gillibrand statistically tied (45 to 44 percent).
So the Republicans could lose Delaware and win New York? Yeah, it’s that kind of year.
It knows no bounds, but it’s not modesty! Modesty is a virtue predicated of a moral agent. Women in Saudi Arabia are the victims of those perverse laws, not the agents. The aim of modesty is to protect a person—male or female— from being “objectified”—treated as an object for someone else’s use. Objectification could hardly be more complete than the total subjugation of women to men, which is the terrible reality in that demented kingdom. Where women are not permitted to be moral agents, there can be no modesty, only oppression.
One thing is sure: if it were a white evangelical who issued a decree that women must cover up everything except a single eye, oh what howls of outrage there would be. It would be wrong, sexist, bigoted; indeed this white evangelical would be regarded as barely human. But since this is a Muslim cleric, the task must be to understand, to enter imaginatively and compassionately into the world-view which encourages this sort of teaching, and ultimately to argue that this sort of religion/society is not so oppressive for women after all. Thus Naomi Wolf wrote recently that it was not really oppressive, but actually liberating, to wear the head-to-toe gown. It’s lamentable and ironic that the same people who fought against wage disparities, fought for Title-IX, and fought against all sorts of America oppressions of women real and imagined will bend over backwards to defend a radical Muslim cleric who won’t let women walk around with both eyes in the open.
The notion that we cannot judge anything in another culture, no matter how much it contradicts our principles, devolves inevitably into an apologetic for evil.
I guess this fits in with not allowing women to drive, since this will shoot their depth perception to hell.
(sorry to comment twice in a row, but I have to…)
I note that this page brought up an ad for “Find a Muslim Marriage Partner — singlemuslim.com”. How can a woman go into a marriage without both eyes open?
Is it a violation of Islamic law for Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan to be fired? And I mean, really fired, as in out of a cannon, into the sun.
Mr. Hazony again tries to exaggerate a parallel between radical Muslims and Orthodox Jews.
In the past, he wrote an article about some physical abuse that a woman had suffered. Police suspect… It is rumored that… and that was all.
As much as he tries to equate a ubiquitious phenomenon in Islam to a suspected, rumored allegation, it serves to illustrate his prejudice, ignorance, and role in an effort to demean his fellow Jew.
It’s a trait particularly unbecoming for these days before Thursday.
Well said Katie. I feel nauseous and incredulous at the same time as I read this. How these concepts can exist in any part of the world today is quite simply beyond me but then again, I grew up in the west where such things would be wholly unacceptable.
Don’t they have the Home Shopping Network in Saudi Arabia? It seems like there’s a much easier solution — or at least one with less hair-splitting.
I wonder: if she be blind in one eye, does she cover that eye or the good one to portray a better level of modesty?
retarded minds can only produce retarded laws , corrupt mentalities produce only corrupt sick and twisted religious fatwas .
Tuesday links mania…
Busy day today, but I want to leave you with a variety of interesting links. First, US national politics: Did you know that criticizing the policies that lead to mortgage and credit crises is racist? Democrat Barney Frank (one of……